What makes a wrestling match great? How do we distinguish the highest quality pro wrestling from a mediocre or low quality product?
Maybe defining the best pro wrestling is similar to the old quote describing how to identify obscenity: “I know it when I see it.” Let me see if I can put it into words…
In America, we treasure whatever turns the biggest profit. If we can commodify it and sell a lot of it to willing buyers, then it must be good and valuable. Money talks and bull-puckey walks around here.
By this definition, the popular mainstream product would be the highest quality wrestling available. It’s creating millionaires and billionaires, and millions of people are crowding into arenas each year and/or paying big bucks to see it. Ratings are good, which draws that high dollar advertising revenue.
You can’t argue with success. Whatever they’re doing in that ring is working, so it must have some appeal, some aspects of quality, that people are willing to pay for.
Fans of the art and science of wrestling will argue that the mainstream product lacks much real wrestling, that even the most skilled grapplers will water down their talents when they get to the Big Show.
So if it’s not the high quality of in-ring action that so many millions of viewers are drawn to, it must be the dramatic storytelling and/or the attractiveness and sex appeal of the performers. Certainly these are two of the most important elements that make up great pro wrestling.
Purists who love the sport for the in-ring action itself will argue that the quality of a match has nothing to do with how many people watch it or how much money it earns. These wrestling fans believe great pro wrestling is defined by a skillfully delivered arsenal of moves — complex holds, chain wrestling, creative new offensive attacks.
These are the fans who write re-caps of matches that focus on the series of moves and holds they observed. For example: “Arn works a great hammerlock, then body-slams Regal, turning him into a pin. Regal wrenched the hell out of Arn’s neck, cranking cravates, cracking him in the mouth with crossfaces.”
These fans may actually refuse to watch the popular promotions (and miss out on some very sweet eye-candy) and instead often favor the small Indy promotions where the wrestlers still work in the ring, or the Japanese federations where actual pro wrestling still occurs — where you could actually see a Full Nelson, Ab Stretch, and Camel Clutch all in the same match!
Before YouTube was invented in 2005, we were pretty much stuck with the mainstream product only. But now there is so much great fucking pro wrestling available from all over — this is a truly great time to be a lover of the high skill product.
But pro wrestling is more than just a bunch of moves in a row. Great wrestling matches depend heavily on great selling. The victim of each move or hold needs to take the time to broadcast his agony and helplessness throughout the known universe without seeming too cheesy or fake about it.
One drawback of some fast-paced modern matches, although the athletes are highly skillful, is that there just ain’t enough moaning and groaning.
For any wrestling match to earn the highest accolades, it must feature at least one man (preferably the Baby Face) in absolutely the most horrendous agony a human can endure. We must observe both the highly technical, high quality moves and holds, as well as their after-effects.
Great pro wrestling is a sensory buffet, with plenty of blood, sweat, and/or tears to see, and some explosive, bone-jarring impacts that rattle the ring like an earthquake, followed by those loud grunts of pure hurt. If we can’t easily determine who is being broken and punished at any given moment in the match, then we aren’t watching great pro wrestling.
And perhaps the most important element of great wrestling is great story-telling. We want the match to offer a narrative, to have a moral or explain some Universal Truth.
The are many great stories to tell, from the Overconfident Veteran, to the Innocent Rookie, to the Villain Gets His Just Punishment, to the Muscleman Loses to a Wimp.
In the end, the quality of pro wrestling is in the eye of the beholder. Like any art form, the greatest works are those that move you in some way: startle or frighten you, turn you on, make you feel compassion, or jubilation, or anger.
So be sure to check out as much pro wrestling as you can from all over the world in search for the most stunning and riveting matches you can find. You won’t enjoy everything you see, but you will find at least some action that falls under you’re unique definition of the greatest wrestling on the planet.
What makes a great wrestling match? Hmm- how about Alex Wright, in tight trunks showing off his massive ****! I recall Eric Bischoff taking the mince out of Tony Scha…something Italian when Alex Wright made his way to the ring gyrating his hips and sticking out his groin ‘the highlight of Nitro as far as you’re concerned’ teased Bischoff!
I much prefer the vintage wrestling of the late 70s very early 80s when there was a sense of danger to it. The very early Steve O, Tommy Seigler, Jerry Kozak (that’s going further back), the original Paul Diamond (Google them all). When they were fed to the biggest heels passing through the territory. Unfortunately most not captured on video, although there is a great match on a BG tape called “Beatings 1” with an early Big John Studd who manhandles (I THINK it’s a very early Steve O but there’s no intro and most of the time he’s running into a boot or writhing on the mat with his ass up) in the ring and the beauty just suffers brilliantly while the ladies in the audience scream in horror. Over and over. It’s a hand filmed no commentary match, very clipped, and I’d give a nut to have the entire thing.
Who’s the bald guy in the photo named getready.jpg? Thanks!